Special Needs Learners

English Language Learners

It is very important that we keep English Language Learners in mind when we are differentiating our instruction.  A great way to help English Language Learners is putting labels on things around the classroom like the door, whiteboard, desk, cabinets, light switch, etc... This helps the student become from familiar with common every day things that they will definitely need to know.  For students who are just starting learning English, it is vital that you set them up for success to the best of your ability. This video talks about other strategies you can use to help English Language Learners in your classroom.  For example, assigning the student a buddy, writing clearly in print, and placing students in the front or towards the front of the classroom.  This video gives even more examples which can be very useful for teachers who have an English Language Learning student in their classroom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkKa64rLC3o

by Vanessa Gripshover

English Language Learners

Often English Language Learners need more resources so they can see direct English instruction. They can learn a lot through immersion but more still when English meanings are made explicit. First,  English Teacher Websites is a collection of easy to search English resources. Here you can search for poetry, spelling assistance, specifically ESL tools, and more. Therefore, this site is great for teacher planning and finding accommodations along with English lessons to clarify parts of English grammar that the students may not gain naturally like native English speakers. Through this site I found a collection of ESL and EFL teachers' journals called The Internet TESL Journal: For Teachers of English as a Second Language. It is absolutely fantastic with hundreds of resources for teachers including research articles and lesson plans. Some specific resources included a reading comprehension and advancing vocabulary lessons along with a heritage language maintenance resource. It is more than likely that there will only be one ELL teacher at my future place of employment so it is invaluable to have a wide variety of resources directly from multiple ELL teachers.

English Teacher Websites. (N/A). "Home Page." Retrieved from englishteacherwebsites(2018, April 6th): http://www.englishteacherwebsites.com/resource-te.html

The Internet TESL Journal: For Teachers of English as a Second Language. (2014). "Home Page" Retrieved from ITESLJ (2018, April 6th): http://iteslj.org/

by Emily Stork

Gifted Learners

In the classroom many gifted learners are not getting what they need to thrive and learn. Many teachers have misconceptions about gifted students needing more work to get them occupied or telling them to work ahead in the lesson. These both are wrong strategies to approach gifted learners. In order for these students to grow in their area of specialty they don’t need more work, they need more challenging work. The key to accommodating gifted learners is by finding ways to make their work just more challenging than non gifted students. This way the students will stay just as busy as non gifted students, but they also will be growing just as much as them. I found a great article that lists the dos and don’ts of instruction for gifted students. This article Serving Gifted Students in General Ed Classrooms is found on Edutopia. Some of the don’ts include: expect the gifted students to be well behaved, give them more work, isolate them, and use them as assistance to other students. It’s important to use the student’s gift to their advantage not the advantage of you, the teacher. Some of the dos listed include: ensure rich content, figure out what areas they are gifted in, allow gifted students to work together, and implement research based units. Overall, gifted learners will be in almost every classroom and it’s our job as teachers to do whatever we can to ensure that those students are growing just as much as non gifted students.

Brown, E. F., Dr. (2015, July 14). Serving Gifted Students in General Ed Classrooms. Retrieved April 09, 2018, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/gifted-students-general-ed-classrooms-elissa-brown

By: Lexie Richardson

English Language Learners

As most of us know, it can be hard for an ELL in the classroom.  This is a group that we need to remember when we are differentiating in our classrooms.  one major way I have seen that helps ELL's in the classroom is to find out what they are best at, and work off that.  Once a student feels confident in one area, they might fee more apt to trying something they aren't as good at.  Another way is to find out what they like and connect the content to that.  These strategies for differentiation can work for any student, but they have proved helpful specifically for ELL's.

Link: https://www.amle.org/BrowsebyTopic/WhatsNew/WNDet/TabId/270/ArtMID/888/ArticleID/350/Differentiating-Instruction-for-ELLs.aspx

By: Megan Farley